About the latter end of June, 1688, he sailed on board the Dutch fleet from Gombroon, which having orders to touch at Muscat and several other ports of Arabia, he enjoyed an opportunity of observing something of the climate and productions of that country, from whose spicy shore, to borrow the language of Milton, Sabæan odours are diffused by the north-east winds, when,—
Pleased with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles!
Proceeding eastward through the Indian Ocean, they successively visited the north-western coasts of the Deccan, the kingdoms of Malabar, the island of Ceylon, the Gulf of Bengal, and Sumatra; all which countries he viewed with the same curious eye, the same spirit of industry and thirst of knowledge.
Upwards of a year was spent in this delightful voyage, the fleet not arriving at Batavia, its ultimate point of destination, until the month of September, 1689. Kæmpfer regarded this chief seat of the Dutch power in the East as a hackneyed topic, and neglected to bestow any considerable research or pains upon its history or appearance, its trade, riches, power, or government; but the natural history of the country, a subject more within the scope of his taste and studies, as well as more superficially treated by others, commanded much of his attention. The curious and extensive garden of Cornelius Van Outhoorn, director-general of the Dutch East India Company, the garden of M. Moller, and the little island of Eidam, lying but a few leagues off Batavia, afforded a number of rare and singular plants, indigenous and exotic, many of which he was the first to observe and describe.
It was at that period the policy of the Dutch to send an annual embassy to the court of Japan, the object of which was to extend and give stability to their commercial connexion with that country. Kæmpfer, who had now been eight months in Batavia, and appears during that period to have made many powerful and useful friends, obtained the signal favour of being appointed physician to the embassy; and one of the ships receiving orders to touch at Siam, the authorities, to enhance the obligation, permitted him to perform the voyage in this vessel, that an opportunity might be afforded him of beholding the curiosities of that country.
He sailed from Batavia on the 7th of May, 1690; and steering through the Thousand Islands, having the lofty mountains of Java and Sumatra in sight during two days, arrived in thirteen days at Puli Timon, a small island on the eastern coast of Malacca. The natives, whom he denominates banditti, were a dark, sickly-looking race, who, owing to their habit of plucking out their beard, a custom likewise prevalent in Sumatra and the Malay peninsula, had all the appearance of ugly old women. Their dress consisted of a coarse cummerbund, or girdle, and a hat manufactured from the leaves of the sago-palm. They understood nothing of the use of money; but willingly exchanged their incomparable mangoes, figs, pineapples, and fowls for linen shirts, rice, or iron. On the 6th of June they arrived safely in the mouth of the Meinam, and cast anchor before Siam, where our traveller’s passion for botany immediately led him into the woods in search of plants; but as tigers and other wild beasts were here the natural lords of the soil, it was fortunate that his herborizing did not cost him dearer than he intended.
In this country, which has recently been so ably described by Mr. Crawfurd, the historian of the Indian Archipelago, Kæmpfer made but a short stay. In the capital, which formed the extreme limit of his knowledge, he observed a great number of temples and schools, adorned with pyramids and columns of various forms, covered with gilding. Though smaller than European churches in dimension, they were, he thought, greatly superior in beauty, on account of their numerous bending and projecting roofs, gilded architraves, porticoes, pillars, and other ornaments. In the interior, the great number of gilded images of Buddha, seated in long rows upon raised terraces, whence they seemed to overlook the worshippers, increased the picturesque character of the building. Some of these statues were of enormous size, exceeding not only that Phidian Jupiter, represented in a sitting posture, which, had it risen, must have lifted up the roof of the temple, but even those prodigious statues of Osymandyas, on the plains of Upper Egypt, which look like petrifactions of Typhæus and Enceladus, the Titans who cast Pelion upon Ossa. One of these gigantic images, one hundred and twenty feet long, represents Buddha reclining in a meditative posture, and has set the fashion in Siam for the attitude in which wisdom may be most successfully wooed.
In sailing down the Meinam he was greatly amused with the extraordinary number of black and gray monkeys, which walked like pigmy armies along the shore, or perched themselves upon the tops of the loftiest trees, like crows. The glowworms, he observes, afforded another curious spectacle; for, setting upon trees, like a fiery cloud, the whole swarm would spread themselves over its branches, sometimes hiding their light all at once, and a moment after shining forth again with the utmost regularity and exactness, as if they were in a perpetual systole and diastole. The innumerable swarms of mosquitoes which inhabited the same banks were no less constant and active, though less agreeable companions, which, from the complaints of our traveller, appear to have taken a peculiar pleasure in stinging Dutchmen.
They left the mouth of the river on the 7th of July, and on the 11th of August discovered the mountains of Fokien in China. Continuing their course along the southern coast of this empire, they observed, about the twenty-seventh degree of north latitude, a yellowish-green substance floating on the surface of the sea, which appeared for two days. Exactly at the same time they were visited by a number of strange black birds, which perched on several parts of the ship, and suffered themselves to be taken by the hand. These visits, which were made during a dead calm, and when the weather was insufferably hot, was succeeded by tremendous storms, accompanied by thunder and lightning, and a darkness terrible as that of Egypt. The rain, which was now added to the other menaces of the heavens, and was hurled, mingled with brine and spray, over the howling waves, appeared to threaten a second deluge; and both Kæmpfer and the crew seem to have anticipated becoming a prey to the sharks. However, though storm after storm beat upon them in their course, the “audax genus Japeti” boldly pursued their way, and on the 24th of September cast anchor in the harbour of Nangasaki, in Japan, which is enclosed with lofty mountains, islands, and rocks, and thus guarded by nature against the rage of the sea and the fury of the tempest.
The appearance of this harbour, which on the arrival of Kæmpfer was enlivened by a small fleet of pleasure-boats, was singularly picturesque. In the evening all the vessels and boats put up their lights, which twinkled like so many stars, over the dark waves; and when the warm light of the morning appeared, the pleasure-boats, with their alternate black and white sails, standing out of the port, and gilded by the bright sunshine, constituted an agreeable spectacle. The next sight was equally striking. This consisted of a number of Japanese officers, with pencil and paper in hand, who came on board for the purpose of reviewing the newly-arrived foreigners, of whom, after narrowly scrutinizing every individual, they made an exact list and description of their persons, in the same manner as we describe thieves and suspicious characters in Europe. All their arms and ammunition, together with their boat and skiff, were demanded and delivered up. Their prayer-books and European money they concealed in a cask, which was carefully stowed away out of the reach of the Japanese.